


End of the Affair

by GrumpkinVicky



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Ending Relationship, F/F, best laid plans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrumpkinVicky/pseuds/GrumpkinVicky
Summary: Adaar negotiates for a week away before the madness of the Exalted Council with her beloved Josie. It goes about as well as any other trip she's been on since becoming the Herald.
Relationships: Female Adaar/Josephine Montilyet
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	End of the Affair

“I must once again say how much I disapprove of this, Inquisitor.”

“Cassandra, it’s Adaar, Herah if you can untangle your britches long enough,” Adaar said, giving her long time cohort a look. Cassandra was adamant that this was not the best time to go off on one last trip with Josie. The mulish look on Cassandra’s face implied she was not going to stop trying to convince her. 

“I understand, Adaar, that with the last rift closed, that you believe this is the time to take a break, but we have the Exalted Council to prepare for. We need our diplomat, we need to be prepared.”

“Cass, we both know what’s going to happen. Ferelden still hasn’t forgiven us for getting involved with Celene, they’re baying for our blood no matter how many times we save the King from Venatori. Orlais approving of us is only going to entrench the hate,” Adaar chose her words carefully, Josie had ranted in much more detail about how Teagan had whipped the Landsmeet up into a frenzy. The only options would be to become the private army of the Divine or disband. 

“Proof then, that we must work harder to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Cassandra said, ramrod straight as if she could force her point home.

Adaar sighed. Of all of the ones remaining Cass had become the most entrenched. It didn't matter she planned to leave herself, for Daniel, and all the other souls lost in the name of the Seekers. 

“Josie won’t be returning back from the Exalted Council.” There, she’d said it. Josie hadn’t as such told Adaar yet or perhaps known herself, but it was clear as the cracks in the walls. The increased frequency in letters from her family. The long conversations with Captain Isabella. The weepy visits from Yvette bemoaning the fate of her future. 

Shok wasn’t any better, sending Kaaris to explain how old and infirm Shok was becoming. That until they could find a worthy successor, Shok would have to work until dead. Then the visit from Shok themselves, talking about the good old days, when Adaar was being groomed to take over, before all of this. It was clear that Adaar short of being executed at the Exalted Council would be heading to takeover whether she wanted to or not. 

This trip that she’d spent every moment since the summons convincing Josie to come on, would be the last time they were together. One final goodbye before duty took over and Josie would go and get married to some prince for the good of the family. The last chance of the tranquil peace Adaar found when lying next to her, without a care in the world.

“I didn’t know,” Cassandra had the grace to look slightly shamefaced.

“We will be gone no longer than a week, you even know where we’re going, the place Cullen suggested. I ask for just one week, without any responsibility before we return to it all.” The packing up, Josie desperately trying to wrap up the contracts while avoiding the truth that she was going home. 

Josie gave a half-hearted last attempt as they were mounting to convince her that they couldn’t leave. Half-hearted enough that all it took was a leg up onto her dapple mare to silence the question, having decided that it was safer not to go in a carriage. Even if it did mean they packed light, and Josie’s just in case dress didn’t make the packing cut. They were going to what Cullen described, while drunk, as a shack. To Josie, they’d both described it as a cosy little cabin on a pretty pond. By the time they were there, it would be too late for her to complain, and either way, they were hardly going to be dressing up for the occasion.

A days ride, through relatively safe countryside hadn’t assured Adaar enough to leave her armour behind. Josie groused at having to wear leathers, but not over making sure her weapons were in easy reach. How much the chocolate Adaar deliberately placed in the provisions pack had to do with it, was between Josie and the chocolate.

“Beware of bears,” Cullen muttered as they’d left. Adaar made a note to write to Mia just for that on their return. Another thing not to mention to Josie until they were too far out.

The trip out was lovely, they barely saw anything larger than a fennec as they entered a long bowered lane.

“Oh, I shall miss this,” Josie sighed misty-eyed, the changing of the leaves glowing in the dusk.

“Ferelden has its charms,” Adaar said, grinning as Josie shot her a dirty look. “We have a week for us to grow tired of said charms. When we remember how wet it is, although…” 

“You have promised me a charming cabin to hide from the damp,” Josie narrowed her eyes, before gasping as they got to the “pond” with the charming cabin. The shack wasn’t even a shack. Perhaps it had been, once, before bad weather or bears had destroyed it. Adaar was going to kill Cullen if they made it back in one piece.

“We can fix it,” she promised, giving half an eye to the beam that looked like it used to hold up the roof that was now half in the water.

“Fix it?” Josie gave her _the_ look. 

She hopped down to get a closer look. She’d promised Josie a lovely relaxing week by a pond, and she was going to deliver. Because that’s what she did, she delivered. 

Perhaps the walls weren’t all there, and the door definitely had huge gouge marks down the length of it. One of the walls was still wall-like until she touched it and could feel it give way beneath even the smallest of forces.

“Should I set up camp?” Josie asked with the decided lightness of a furious ambassador.

“I’ll do it, would you like to sit next to the water?” a dangerous question. 

Even donating all of her bedding to bulk out Josie’s, she barely got more than an angry sigh from her lover. She’d need to come up with more torturous things to do to Cullen to make up for it. 

“Leave it!” Josie snapped as she tried to lift the beam back into place, using the horses as counterweights. 

“I promised you a shelter. I will deliver a shelter.” Because it gave her something to focus on rather than the knowledge that she was failing to provide a nice relaxing break as she’d promised.

It was the last time Josie spoke to her that day, instead pulling out the box of chocolates and some smut that had Cassandra written all over it. Adaar managed to get the basic frame back up, using her hammer to smash the timbers into the ground, while imagining Cullen’s face. The remnants of a bed frame looked sturdy enough to accommodate Josie’s weight. And the tent easily covered the roof, even if she was tutted at for re-purposing it. A structure she could manage, crafting a full roof, well, that would be pushing it.

The frame didn’t even hold the weight of the bedrolls, the slats disintegrating within moments. They refused to burn, and Adaar was ready to scream. There was one chair that held any weight. The table was in bits, the cupboards were damp and in pieces. Still, she had the love of a good woman to keep her warm. A good woman who was curled up in front of the fireplace, wrapped up tightly in her cloak while resting on both bedrolls.

Another book, this time a weightier one, and another box of chocolates. Josie didn’t even look at Adaar as they woke. A bed, that was the order of the day, after she’d pulled buckets of water up to the battered-looking half tub that miraculously hadn’t been destroyed in a bear attack. 

She killed three bears, in between chopping up several trees to make a low lying frame. Tom would have kittens if he’d seen the work she’d done, but it was off the ground, and it held her weight. 

“Bear?” Josie asked with another of her looks as Adaar carved up more of the joint for the evening meal.

“I thought a change from fish or ram,” she said, prodding it dubiously. Solas used herbs when he cooked, seemingly summoning the things from the ground. She’d slashed the flesh and put in the same that he used. It was juicy, not a bit like he’d made it but edible, and they had plenty. She’d tossed most of the meat, taking it out a good ride away to leave for the other bears that she was more than sure roamed.

She still wasn’t allowed the bedroll, but that night Josie had rolled into her, resting her silky hair against Adaar’s neck. She got even less sleep, this would be the last time she could do this, the last time she would be able to smell the soft incense that clung to Josie even after days of slumming it in tents. 

She was gifted a smile, before her love buried into another book, and the unending box of chocolate. She spent the morning hunting down the prettiest of flowers. Battling another couple of bears, it would be something she’d need to warn Shok, bears loved her all of a sudden, and gathering dry wood to stoke the fire. 

“Oh…” Josie sighed, bringing them up to her nose to sniff, “They are beautiful, thank you.”

“They barely do you any justice,” her words barely did her justice. How could she express how much Josie meant to her, in a way that wouldn’t come off as one of Varric’s lurid books. How to express her affection without the bonds of captivity? 

“Herah…” this was it, this was the talk.

“Fish for supper?” the look of relief in Josie’s eyes, the dull pain that lingered flaring, as she threw a line into the pond, Josie settling next to her. Idle conversation flowed as they talked about everything that wasn’t the future. The giant nug in the room avoided for another day.

What was it Shok said, don’t be a fucking idiot. Adaar took those words to heart, as she tucked Josie against her chest. The roof caved in soon after they woke, a sudden deluge that soaked the pair to the core had them packing up. Another bear attack had the walls tumbling down with a missed whack of the hammer. 

They rode back quietly, with bear pelts a plenty to dump in Cullen’s bed. If this had been one of those wretched books, the sky would have been stormy, yet the skies were clear once they left the bear haven. The birds sang, the streams babbled, and she felt the weight of Skyhold growing ever heavier the closer they got.

They’d barely gotten in sight of the walls when they were greeted by a small troop riding out. “Inquisitor, Ambassador.”

A wyvern loose on the road after a cart transporting it for study had broken, she could hardly leave them to fight it alone. Yet, as she turned to look at her Josie - “Inquisitor,” her Ambassador touched her hand gently, “Thank you.”

“Thank you too, Ambassador.”


End file.
